That's none of your business and you have no right to point a gun at someone and require him to help someone against his will. That's slavery.
No, it's you choosing to live in a country that has those laws, which by the way (via representative democracy) you have a voice in.
Calling taxes your representatives chose that you don't personally agree with slavery is like saying George Lucas raped your childhood with the Phantom Menace: amusing, but obvious hyperbole.
And nobody seriously argues that the US has the "best health care in the world".
I disagree with you here; I hear people argue that every time health care comes up. "We've got the best health care in the world -- why would we fix something that's already the best?" is a standard anti-health-care-reform talking point.
(I don't agree with them, but a lot of people legitimately do believe it.)
Take a look at the biggest Insurance industry recipients - the majority are DEMOCRATS. Who do you think paid for this bill?
Assuming you're correct, I still don't necessarily reach the same conclusion.
If every Republican is going to vote against the bill and that still isn't enough, it follows that if you want to kill it, you need to buy some Democrats.
This attitude is probably why you're either not a boss or not a smart boss.
I've worked with a lot of people who fucked around playing web games or chatting part of their day. Some of those people were relatively useless and should have been replaced; others were the most productive members of their teams by a wide margin. A good boss can tell the difference between these people.
If Person A gets 10 units of work done in a week and doesn't Facebook, and Person B gets 100 units of work done in a week and plays Farmtown or whatever, you'd be a fool to choose Employee A over B, but that's exactly what you're endorsing whether you realize it or not.
I know they're not claiming they've passed. But you've assumed something pretty big: "hey are just showing that they are making progress". If they've only got to 55, and the process of reaching 55 does not fulfil the rest of the test (being smooth, namely) then it actually hasn't even got to 55. It may as well be at zero.
To be fair, you're also making a big assumption: that someone cares what you consider the score that an alpha browser achieves against a test it's not trying to pass is.
I mean, this is a site full of geek wankery, and I mean that in the most affectionate sense, but come on.
Well, if that's the case, Apple would have paid up already.
This isn't necessarily true -- it could be the smart move for Apple to do something it knows is likely to eventually lose in court and prolong how long they're able to do so, if they think they can make more money meanwhile than they will lose by paying legal fees meanwhile.
Apple may be litigious, but it's not stupid - if it was a simple case, they would have settled it by now.
I'm not convinced that's true -- sometimes the smart move is to play for time even though you'll ultimately lose.
In other words (assuming for the moment that Apple is in the wrong and knows they will lose, which isn't necessarily true, but for the sake of discussion I'll pretend it is), Apple might think they can make more money by growing their marketshare by infringing on Nokia's patents now, than they will lose by losing the case in a few years or however long their lawyers can drag it out in court.
The reality of the legal system is that sometimes even your victories are pyrrhic.
My understanding was that basically all the major companies in the mobile space essentially "traded" use of patents to each other via agreements, and that it was generally considered that none of them would be able to make a profit in that space if they didn't do so.
In other words, what they're asking from Apple is essentially the same deal they have with everyone else.
I assumed they were killed after the procedure, kind of like killing the Pharoah's slaves after they finish building his pyramid so they can't compromise its secret chambers.
Government work is kind of a weird bag. I recently did some contract work for a government entity.
On one hand, yeah, some of the employees evinced a level of laziness that could not long survive in the private sector of small to medium size. (My experience is that larger corporations and government have similar ratios of useless employees.)
On the other hand, the really shitty part of being a public servant is that you have to deal with the public. Probably, most of the people you deal with in your daily life are reasonably sane, mature, and normal. You might start to believe, as I once did, that everyone is like this. I assure you this is not the case. The people I was working with were in a department that had nothing to do with the criminal justice system, and yet, on virtually any topic you could bring up over lunch, they would be able to relate at least one and usually several work stories wherein either someone tried to shoot someone else, or someone urinated on something they shouldn't.
I can honestly say that in the duration of my career, primarily in the private sector, that no one has ever tried to shoot me or piss on me.
So... I can also see why it can be hard to keep good people in government work, too.
Without knowing how the math works in this case (based on having done contract development for government entities in the past; my experience may or may not be relevant here)... probably, state employees are entitled to a set of benefits and health insurance that are really good, vs. the probably not very good benefits the temporary workers will get.
Really good benefits are expensive. The government employees I last worked with, for example, had health care that paid for basically everything with no copays. For a private sector IT employee anything half that good is unheard-of.
The danger to China in a Google pullout (whether they realize it or not) isn't in the typical search market. Baidu, yes, already crushes Google there.
It's in the ability of China's scientists and researchers to have a strong ability to search scientific research papers and similar material from the rest of the world. In this specific area, Google's offering is excellent and Baidu, not so much.
Of course, there's probably not a situation in which key Chinese scientists didn't still end up with some kind of access to Google for this purpose one way or another.
Out of curiousity, what did you prefer in 3 vs. 4? I really liked 2 and 4, but found 3 to be unplayable (as in, I literally never was able to finish a game without getting bored and switching to something else) and I'm wondering what I'm missing.
Religon's biggest long-term effect in the CIV4 was just to give AI Civ's one more thing to get pissed off at you about. There was no winning with it either, as no matter which you picked, you'd tick somebody off. This made persuing one of the peaceful victory options (like a cultural win) damn near impossible.
I will respectfully disagree with you:
- Yes, your choice of religion will most likely piss somebody off. (It's not completely unheard of for everyone in a Civ IV game to end up with the same religion, but mostly rare.) But that's just a reflection of the nature of diplomacy in Civ IV in general: nearly everything you do pisses somebody off. Sign a defensive pact with Russia or trade and you make them happy, but their enemy Germany gets surly about it. Diplomacy in Civ IV is less about trying to make everyone happy and more about choosing who to befriend.
- Along those lines, religion added something interesting to the game in making you weigh the costs and benefits of a religion choice. Most of my cities are Buddhist, but my Aztec neighbor is Hindu. Is it more important to me right now to maximize the happiness/production of my cities by choosing Buddhist, or to make Montezuma happier with me by being Hindu?
- The Apostolic Palace, especially in the votes that result from it, add an extra layer of complexity. Ideally you'd like to be the religion that covers your country the most, build the Palace, spread your religion to other civs, and use it to push them around. But there are opportunity costs in achieving all of that, and there's always the chance that someone else spreads the religion more than you have and uses the Palace to push you around instead. In a lot of ways it's a more complex early-game U.N., which I think would be right up your alley if you like diplomacy.
Eh. I was writing simple games in BASIC at age 6. I'm pretty sure C memory management would have kicked my ass sideways at the time. I submit to you that this doesn't necessarily make me a bad programmer in a larger sense.
I mean, in a sense teaching yourself to program as a kid requires comprehending very basic algebra, so who's to say what one could or couldn't pick up, but it seems like it'd be harder to get C pointer math right without even knowing what multiplication was.
Sometimes something very simple and limited really is the right tool for the job or the audience.
If the iPhone dev. agreement was too draconian, do you really think there would be well over 100k apps in the App Store? Is every developer stupid (but you)?
Over 100k people played the lottery and lost yesterday. Are they all smarter than you, too?
If it takes more than filling a chair to be a game developer, they're not so replacable.
It does, but not much more. They're still replacable enough.
There's a vicious cycle at work here: Because most of the developers in the game industry don't have a lot of game industry experience, they're considered (correctly, unfortunately) very replacable. Because developers are very replacable, there are few financial incentives for game companies to not work the hell out of them -- if you don't want to work 80 hour weeks in a constant "crunch time" death march, you can be easily be replaced by someone with not much less experience who will. Because working conditions are bad, game development has a high burnout rate and not a lot of people make it to level of seniority to be seen as more valuable and less replacable.
As long as many more people want to be game developers than can be, most game developers are considered very, very replaceable. I have to think it's hard to make a union work in an environment like that.
This is much less true for, for example, people who have been in the industry ten years and have shipped multiple successful titles -- but those people are relatively fewer and farther between.
Slashdot Mirror
That's none of your business and you have no right to point a gun at someone and require him to help someone against his will. That's slavery.
No, it's you choosing to live in a country that has those laws, which by the way (via representative democracy) you have a voice in.
Calling taxes your representatives chose that you don't personally agree with slavery is like saying George Lucas raped your childhood with the Phantom Menace: amusing, but obvious hyperbole.
And nobody seriously argues that the US has the "best health care in the world".
I disagree with you here; I hear people argue that every time health care comes up. "We've got the best health care in the world -- why would we fix something that's already the best?" is a standard anti-health-care-reform talking point.
(I don't agree with them, but a lot of people legitimately do believe it.)
So the bill has been in the works for a year or so, and the American people still don't know what's in the bill? Are you really suggesting that?
Whether the GP is suggesting it or not, I'll flat out say it: Most Americans don't know what's in the bill.
I'll go even further and say that most Americans who care enough to take a strong opinion for or against the bill also don't know what's in the bill.
Exhibit A: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pilG7PCV448
Take a look at the biggest Insurance industry recipients - the majority are DEMOCRATS. Who do you think paid for this bill?
Assuming you're correct, I still don't necessarily reach the same conclusion.
If every Republican is going to vote against the bill and that still isn't enough, it follows that if you want to kill it, you need to buy some Democrats.
This attitude is probably why you're either not a boss or not a smart boss.
I've worked with a lot of people who fucked around playing web games or chatting part of their day. Some of those people were relatively useless and should have been replaced; others were the most productive members of their teams by a wide margin. A good boss can tell the difference between these people.
If Person A gets 10 units of work done in a week and doesn't Facebook, and Person B gets 100 units of work done in a week and plays Farmtown or whatever, you'd be a fool to choose Employee A over B, but that's exactly what you're endorsing whether you realize it or not.
I know they're not claiming they've passed. But you've assumed something pretty big: "hey are just showing that they are making progress". If they've only got to 55, and the process of reaching 55 does not fulfil the rest of the test (being smooth, namely) then it actually hasn't even got to 55. It may as well be at zero.
To be fair, you're also making a big assumption: that someone cares what you consider the score that an alpha browser achieves against a test it's not trying to pass is.
I mean, this is a site full of geek wankery, and I mean that in the most affectionate sense, but come on.
Well, if that's the case, Apple would have paid up already.
This isn't necessarily true -- it could be the smart move for Apple to do something it knows is likely to eventually lose in court and prolong how long they're able to do so, if they think they can make more money meanwhile than they will lose by paying legal fees meanwhile.
In theory, this is why China should care about Google:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/02/china-scientists-google/
Since Android is open source isn't duplication and derivation expected and perfectly fine?
Sure, but then does Google really have a big financial stake in what's happening with its knock-offs?
Apple may be litigious, but it's not stupid - if it was a simple case, they would have settled it by now.
I'm not convinced that's true -- sometimes the smart move is to play for time even though you'll ultimately lose.
In other words (assuming for the moment that Apple is in the wrong and knows they will lose, which isn't necessarily true, but for the sake of discussion I'll pretend it is), Apple might think they can make more money by growing their marketshare by infringing on Nokia's patents now, than they will lose by losing the case in a few years or however long their lawyers can drag it out in court.
The reality of the legal system is that sometimes even your victories are pyrrhic.
Are you sure that's accurate?
My understanding was that basically all the major companies in the mobile space essentially "traded" use of patents to each other via agreements, and that it was generally considered that none of them would be able to make a profit in that space if they didn't do so.
In other words, what they're asking from Apple is essentially the same deal they have with everyone else.
I assumed they were killed after the procedure, kind of like killing the Pharoah's slaves after they finish building his pyramid so they can't compromise its secret chambers.
Government work is kind of a weird bag. I recently did some contract work for a government entity.
On one hand, yeah, some of the employees evinced a level of laziness that could not long survive in the private sector of small to medium size. (My experience is that larger corporations and government have similar ratios of useless employees.)
On the other hand, the really shitty part of being a public servant is that you have to deal with the public. Probably, most of the people you deal with in your daily life are reasonably sane, mature, and normal. You might start to believe, as I once did, that everyone is like this. I assure you this is not the case. The people I was working with were in a department that had nothing to do with the criminal justice system, and yet, on virtually any topic you could bring up over lunch, they would be able to relate at least one and usually several work stories wherein either someone tried to shoot someone else, or someone urinated on something they shouldn't.
I can honestly say that in the duration of my career, primarily in the private sector, that no one has ever tried to shoot me or piss on me.
So... I can also see why it can be hard to keep good people in government work, too.
Without knowing how the math works in this case (based on having done contract development for government entities in the past; my experience may or may not be relevant here)... probably, state employees are entitled to a set of benefits and health insurance that are really good, vs. the probably not very good benefits the temporary workers will get.
Really good benefits are expensive. The government employees I last worked with, for example, had health care that paid for basically everything with no copays. For a private sector IT employee anything half that good is unheard-of.
The danger to China in a Google pullout (whether they realize it or not) isn't in the typical search market. Baidu, yes, already crushes Google there.
It's in the ability of China's scientists and researchers to have a strong ability to search scientific research papers and similar material from the rest of the world. In this specific area, Google's offering is excellent and Baidu, not so much.
Of course, there's probably not a situation in which key Chinese scientists didn't still end up with some kind of access to Google for this purpose one way or another.
Out of curiousity, what did you prefer in 3 vs. 4? I really liked 2 and 4, but found 3 to be unplayable (as in, I literally never was able to finish a game without getting bored and switching to something else) and I'm wondering what I'm missing.
Religon's biggest long-term effect in the CIV4 was just to give AI Civ's one more thing to get pissed off at you about. There was no winning with it either, as no matter which you picked, you'd tick somebody off. This made persuing one of the peaceful victory options (like a cultural win) damn near impossible.
I will respectfully disagree with you:
- Yes, your choice of religion will most likely piss somebody off. (It's not completely unheard of for everyone in a Civ IV game to end up with the same religion, but mostly rare.) But that's just a reflection of the nature of diplomacy in Civ IV in general: nearly everything you do pisses somebody off. Sign a defensive pact with Russia or trade and you make them happy, but their enemy Germany gets surly about it. Diplomacy in Civ IV is less about trying to make everyone happy and more about choosing who to befriend.
- Along those lines, religion added something interesting to the game in making you weigh the costs and benefits of a religion choice. Most of my cities are Buddhist, but my Aztec neighbor is Hindu. Is it more important to me right now to maximize the happiness/production of my cities by choosing Buddhist, or to make Montezuma happier with me by being Hindu?
- The Apostolic Palace, especially in the votes that result from it, add an extra layer of complexity. Ideally you'd like to be the religion that covers your country the most, build the Palace, spread your religion to other civs, and use it to push them around. But there are opportunity costs in achieving all of that, and there's always the chance that someone else spreads the religion more than you have and uses the Palace to push you around instead. In a lot of ways it's a more complex early-game U.N., which I think would be right up your alley if you like diplomacy.
I was pretty much in the same boat. I wish I had a laptop for college -- I genuinely can't read my own handwriting most of the time.
Eh. I was writing simple games in BASIC at age 6. I'm pretty sure C memory management would have kicked my ass sideways at the time. I submit to you that this doesn't necessarily make me a bad programmer in a larger sense.
I mean, in a sense teaching yourself to program as a kid requires comprehending very basic algebra, so who's to say what one could or couldn't pick up, but it seems like it'd be harder to get C pointer math right without even knowing what multiplication was.
Sometimes something very simple and limited really is the right tool for the job or the audience.
If the iPhone dev. agreement was too draconian, do you really think there would be well over 100k apps in the App Store? Is every developer stupid (but you)?
Over 100k people played the lottery and lost yesterday. Are they all smarter than you, too?
If it takes more than filling a chair to be a game developer, they're not so replacable.
It does, but not much more. They're still replacable enough.
There's a vicious cycle at work here: Because most of the developers in the game industry don't have a lot of game industry experience, they're considered (correctly, unfortunately) very replacable. Because developers are very replacable, there are few financial incentives for game companies to not work the hell out of them -- if you don't want to work 80 hour weeks in a constant "crunch time" death march, you can be easily be replaced by someone with not much less experience who will. Because working conditions are bad, game development has a high burnout rate and not a lot of people make it to level of seniority to be seen as more valuable and less replacable.
As long as many more people want to be game developers than can be, most game developers are considered very, very replaceable. I have to think it's hard to make a union work in an environment like that.
This is much less true for, for example, people who have been in the industry ten years and have shipped multiple successful titles -- but those people are relatively fewer and farther between.
Is SONY going to make my PS3 explode?
No, but every twenty minutes a kitten will come out.
That'll be fixed in the next update though.
Might as well correlate behavioural changes to Mountain Dew.
But it is! No Mountain Dew and no TV make me something something.
but there's actually a game dealer on the Citadel. They make sure to make him a giant douchebag,
No offense, but reading the rest of your post, I feel like the concept of parody has been lost on you.